People move fast on the Web. They’re busy, they don’t have a lot of time, and they have short attention spans; this makes them more impatient. They want to be able to find information that’s useful to them.

When you have just 10 seconds to grab the user’s attention with your content, you need to make your point and you need to do it FAST.

Here are some tips* to help you get your point across clearly and quickly:

• Put the most important information at the top
• Organize content into SHORT paragraphs (5 lines or less, maximum 20 words per sentence)
• Make sure you understand who your reader base is (so you can write directly to them)
• Avoid jargon, exaggerated claims, and cute or clever lines (they prevent the reader from getting to the main point quickly)
• Write meaningful headlines and subheads (and keep them short!)
• Use clear, concise, and correct language (poorly written copy slows readers down)
• Put yourself in your readers’ shoes (will they care about what you wrote?)
• Don’t copy and paste your print brochure word-for-word

Writing long scrolling pages of confusing, non-useful, and “fluffy” or self-serving content will only drive your audience away from your website. If, after 55 seconds (less than a minute!) of browsing your site, a user still doesn’t understand what your company or your product does, then you need to revisit your content.

The good thing about websites is that they’re dynamic. It’s never too late to develop succinct, clear, and useful website content. People will continue to surf the Web at rates faster than we can blink but, if you present content that’s useful and to the point, they may slow down long enough to check out your site and get to know you.

*Sourced from:

“Website Content Writing Tips.” Entheosweb.com. Entheos. n.d. http://www.entheosweb.com/content_writing/tips.asp

Rollins, Corey. “IMC: Expert Panel Tips on Writing for the Web.” techvibes.com. Techvibes. 12 Sep. 2008. http://www.techvibes.com/blog/imc-expert-pannel-tips-on-writing-for-the-web

“10 Writing Tips for Designers.” Webdesigner Depot.com. Webdesigner Depot. 23 Feb. 2009. http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/02/10-writing-tips-for-web-designers/

It’s an important distinction to make—sales isn’t marketing.

When drilling down to the basics:

• Marketing focuses on the long-term brand and sales focuses on the short-term sales.
• Marketing plans facilitate the brand, experience, and relationship; sales finds opportunities to create, follow up, and build on relationships.
• Marketing’s ultimate goal is to develop and define the product, while sales’ ultimate goal is to close a transaction or deal.

Both sales and marketing are valuable to an organization, with relationships acting as the common thread between them. Sales and marketing need to work closely together so that their efforts complement each other.

Too often, however, the functions get jumbled. The sales goals drive the marketing, and in turn, the marketing efforts become more about simply selling the product and less about selling the brand.

I used to work for a gym where the sales goals drove the marketing efforts. Each month we came up with a sales promotion or incentive.

• If membership sales were down, we increased the frequency of our ads.
• If sales were really down, we gave existing members an incentive to refer a friend.

We were training the market to evaluate us based on our incentive, or price, and not on the experience we offered.

At monthly meetings, we didn’t focus on the number of cancellations, how we could prevent people from cancelling, or, more importantly, how we could make the gym an experience the member valued beyond burning calories. We thought about the product—the membership contract—and never about the experience and relationship the member had with the gym. Once members signed our contract, they were left to fend for themselves in a sea of weights and pulley contraptions.

Our marketing efforts should have been focused on creating tools and programs that would influence the experience and relationship—in other words, the brand. And, on the sales side, we should have been selling the brand, not the contract terms.

We failed to use the powerful connection between sales and marketing. Marketing should support sales. Marketing should help develop the brand and the tools that make the sales job easier. In a recent branding discussion, Kurian Tharakan of Acton Consulting explained this connection with the following analogy:

“Marketing sets the volleyball so that sales can spike.”

Both sales and marketing are important, and when the two work together, the client experience becomes infinitely better and the sales become stronger too.

Summer has arrived! And, with its arrival comes what is often a heart-stopping, bring-you-to-your-knees, please-don’t-make-me experience for many women—swimsuit shopping. (cue dreading music)

Despite my best efforts to schedule a root canal without anaesthesia (as a more appealing option to bikini shopping), I finally bit the bullet and ventured into a cute boutique in downtown Edmonton called Offshores. With hands sweating, heart pounding, and as many skinny thoughts as I could muster, I went in expecting the worst. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.

Now, guys—you are probably tuning out right about now—pay attention. There are some important lessons here for any business that deals with people.

Here is Offshores’ approach:

Know Your Client’s Fears

Offshores recognizes that many women are self-critical, so they take extra steps to make customers feel more comfortable and attractive by dimming the lights.

This made a big difference in my comfort level and my perception of their products; If a certain product doesn’t work for me (i.e., I don’t think it looks good on me), I won’t buy it.

Be Honest, But Supportive

Upon arrival, the staff told me “Don’t worry, we will be honest.” This can be a double-edged sword for many service providers. Yes, be honest, but don’t be critical!

Offshores zoned in on my assets and helped me enhance them. They did not pick at my flaws; this made me feel like they were on my side.

The wonderful experience I had at Offshores (which I had heard of through word-of-mouth) has spurred me to tell others about the store. The effort Offshores makes to ensure that customers are supported—and that they leave not only with a swimsuit, but with a smile on their face—is invaluable advertising.

Anyone can sell a bikini. Helping someone feel better about herself in the process? Holy Cow!

“Think outside the box!” That’s been the motto of modern business and the plea of post-modern pop-culture. But as we learned at this month’s TEN gathering, the key to giving a solid media interview is keeping it inside the box.

Social media has fast-forwarded the traditional 24-hour news cycle into real-time. News is near instantaneous and stories get updated throughout the day. This means that theoretically, you have multiple opportunities to influence what’s being said.

So how can you do this? Develop relationships with media professionals—writers, editors, reporters. Use social media tools to engage them on a regular basis. Once they come to know you as an expert, you’ll be on the top of their mind as a potential source. When a story breaks, they’ll have someone to go to immediately.

The better your relationships with media professionals in your community, the more opportunity you’ll have to control what is being said.

So, you’ve established a good rapport with a reporter, and they’ve asked you to do an interview. How do you prepare? By keeping in mind the power of three and using a little box.

When preparing for the interview, organize your thoughts around three points:

1) Context: provide the background so that people know where you’re coming from

2) Action: three simple and straightforward key messages

3) Vision: the idea or thought or emotion that you want to leave people with

For example, here’s what that might look like for a representative from a downtown clean-up program:

1) Context: We feel that our downtown is a mess, and we’re concerned about it.

2) Action:

• We’re going to pick up three pieces of garbage a day, and we want everyone else to do the same.
• If this happens, we could remove three garbage bins worth of garbage from our streets each day!
• Clean downtowns are safer; they increase quality of life, and are better for tourism.

3) Vision: “We have the cleanest downtown in Canada.”

Now, draw a square around your three points; they are your box, what you will present to the media. Your goal during the interview is to keep the conversation about the topics in your box. Soon, you’ll find that reporters will come to you more often because you present such a strong story—one that practically writes itself.

Take advantage of today’s instantaneous news cycle by developing relationships with the people writing the stories; become known as an expert that they can source when a story breaks. If you present your story in a neatly packaged box, you’ll increase the chances of watching it take-off successfully.

Learn more about TEN.

Companies spend a lot of time and money developing their brand and defining their brand values. After branding, there will be moments when you feel the need to sacrifice those brand values for short-term gain. The costs of doing so may be greater than you think.

Take my friend for example. He just got a new job as a driver. As a new employee, he spent a lot of time in safety training and was exposed to internal messaging indicating that safety is number one. Expectation set. His safety will never be compromised, right?

Last week, he had problems with his truck and asked that the truck be repaired so that he can do his job properly and safely. His manager decided that the downtime would cost too much and opted to have him continue his route without the repair for another two weeks!

Consider the call that manager made. He’s just wasted a lot MORE money than what he thought he saved. First, the company spends thousands of dollars on safety seminars, internal communication on safety, and marketing that promotes “safety” to new prospective employees. Instances like this one communicate that safety is not important after all. For the company, it’s money down the toilet.

Second, now that expectations have not been met, a new counter-culture of safety develops, one of “only when we feel like it.” This could lead to more careless behaviour from employees and more on-the-job accidents.

Third, the negative word-of-mouth spreads. My friend told three people, who then told three other people. You know how it is. Now, the organization needs to work harder to communicate that it is a safe company; it’s fighting an uphill battle against the negative perception which has developed.

Before you make a concession to sacrifice one of your brand values for a short-term, tactical gain, consider what it will do to your company and brand. In the end, you could be losing much more than what you’ll gain.

During a recent trip to New York, I learned a major lesson in marketing. And no, not from any of the overwhelming number of ads crowding Times Square, but from a small deli. While eating “Ah, There’s the Reuben” at the Carnegie Deli, I realized how the principle of this small deli can be applied to businesses, large and small, across all industries.

The Carnegie Deli stands out from hundreds of other New York delis. It is one of New York’s most popular attractions, yet shockingly, it doesn’t spend any money advertising. The Carnegie Deli has succeeded not because of a great gimmick or creative advertising campaigns, but because of a phenomenal business principle:

Do one thing and do it better than everyone else.

The Carnegie Deli has been recognized for its corned beef and pastrami sandwiches by numerous columnists, avid eaters, and travellers from all over the world.

• While many delis bring meat in from other suppliers, the Carnegie Deli cures its own meat.
• While other delis take shortcuts smoking the meat, Carnegie Deli does it the old-fashioned way to give it the best flavour.
• While other delis manipulate the size of their sandwiches by their methods of stacking the meat, the Carnegie Deli continues to make its sandwiches larger and larger (its sandwiches range from five- to eight-and-a-half inches tall).

The word of mouth created by the Carnegie Deli has generated more publicity than any print ad or billboard ever could.

Put your effort into making sure your one thing is better than your competitors’. The spontaneous conversations you create could become your sole form of advertising.

“Good is the enemy of great.” This is the first line in Jim Collins must read book “Good to Great.” He suggests that when we become satisfied with good, we don’t push for great and in so doing set the stage for our own demise.

Good is easy. Good is comfortable. Good typically means doing it the same as we did last time. This is especially true when it comes to service. The problem is that we as customers have become more demanding. Good service is simply expected. We are no longer satisfied with good.

So, what makes service great? A recent family dinner to a local restaurant to celebrate my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary highlighted three key elements to truly great service.

1. Authentic. It needs to be genuine and delivered with a personal touch that can’t be taught. In fact, if you try and train everyone to do the same thing you become less authentic. We brought our 15-month old son to the restaurant with us. Good service would have offered us a high chair, a kid’s menu and maybe some crayons. Great service saw the server on her hands and knees playing peek-a-boo and the hostess making a tin foil hat for my son to wear.
2. Unexpected. To stand out, you have to catch people by surprise. If we see it coming, the impact is less profound. Good service would have had brought out a cake for dessert to help us celebrate the special occasion. Great service had the chef come out from the kitchen to ask my parents for their favorite ingredients. He then proceeded to make a custom dessert just for them!
3. Remarkable. When you break the word down it means something to remark about. Halfway through dinner my sister went to the washroom. When she returned, she proceeded to tell us about the glass tile, the fountain, the twelve types of hand lotion, and the candles. Everyone else suddenly had to go too. When they returned they also raved about the unbelievable bathroom experience. In fact, we are still telling everyone we know.

Don’t settle for good. Seek out ways to make your company’s service more authentic, unexpected and remarkable. Great service is what brings customers back…and really great makes them bring their friends!

In recent years, Edmonton was having an identity crisis. We are one of the fastest growing cities in Canada and the pulse of the country’s economy. The City of Edmonton realized that in order to keep up with this growth, we needed to attract and retain the best and brightest. They decided we needed a better way to tell our city’s story... we needed a new brand.

So what to do? .... How about a new slogan? Perhaps an ad campaign?

No... the communicators at City Hall realized that no slogan or tagline could accurately portray the essence of what Edmonton means to its citizens.

For example, while “Gateway to the North” or “City of Champions”, both of which are old slogans used by the City, may be appealing to the oil and gas sector or 80’s sports fans, they say little of how we are today. They ignore our multiculturalism, our arts community, our river valley and environmental stewardship, and our educational institutions. These are all things that make Edmonton such a great place to live—according to Edmontonians. It’s impossible to capture the true Edmonton in a few words.

The City also realized that while there was a lot of internal love for our city, others hadn’t heard the news. Edmontonians weren’t shouting our praises from the rooftops – we are too modest for that.

This posed a real opportunity. Our own citizens are our best ambassadors, but they weren’t telling their stories. We needed to collect these stories and share them with the world.

So the City of Edmonton turned to social media and launched www.edmontonstories.ca.

Not only is this fast becoming a tool for people from elsewhere to learn about Edmonton, it’s becoming a tool for Edmontonians to learn more about ourselves and our City – the more we know about the City that we love, the more we will share.

This is a great lesson to businesses about the importance of looking to your existing clients to be ambassadors before attempting to reach for new ones. Find out what your base likes about your service offerings and what could be improved – let them be heard and act on their recommendations.

Leverage their experiences to attract new clientele and not only will you attract new clients, you will solidify the relationships you have with your client base. Then use the tools that work best for both to get the word out.

Kudos to the City of Edmonton for this innovative marketing tool!

Discussion at this month’s TEN gathering focused on a topic familiar to many business owners, especially to those whose businesses have experienced significant growth in a short period of time: the identity crisis.

Here’s the situation: if your company has grown quickly through the addition of multiple products or services, and each one targets a distinct audience, should you:

Create multiple brands for each product and service?

or

Operate with one brand that encompasses all aspects of your business?

With a brand for each product or service, you might be able to speak more directly to each of your target audiences, but with one all-encompassing brand, you have the opportunity to carry more weight in the marketplace and take advantage of cross-promotional opportunities.

Realistically, the arguments for and against each option varies greatly depending on your product mix, audience segments, and current and desired position in the market place. But two important points emerged from the TEN discussion:

1. An identity crisis—not knowing who you are as a company—is typically a symptom of not knowing how you are perceived by your clients and target audience(s).
2. An identity crisis is also a symptom of not clearly knowing where you want to be in the future.

Business owners that find themselves in the midst of an identity crisis should pause, and take a step back to re-evaluate their business. Take a brief time-out to reset the bricks and mortar so that your business has the support to continue growing in a way that is both manageable and profitable.

During this pause, inform yourself:

• Find out what your audience thinks of you, how they find you, and what they really need from you. (You might be surprised to find that you’re over-valuing your current brand.)
• Think about your goals as a company; where do you want to be in five years, ten years? (Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.)

Once you’ve established a plan for where you want to take your business, and armed yourself with accurate knowledge about how your business is perceived in the marketplace, you will be able to make an informed decision about which direction to take your brand(s).

Listening. It seems like a relatively simple concept, but in this busy world of hustle and bustle, of I-need-the-answer-now mentality, the importance of listening is something that perhaps we’ve let slip by the wayside —both personally and professionally.

The world is constantly changing—I get it. People are busier than ever. Today, we are exposed to new images, new ideas, new products, new words, new software, new, new, new…it's overwhelming trying to keep up. I once saw a stat that a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century . That's a lot of information. No wonder we retain as little as 25-50% of what we hear in any given conversation. So I still find it surprising, and somewhat shameful, that when having a conversation with a colleague or a friend, they're genuinely surprised when I remember something they told me a few days ago, let alone a week or month ago. I believe in active listening, and practice it by focusing on a few simple things:

• Repeat the words in a conversation mentally as a person says it
• Make eye contact—there's nothing more insulting than someone who is constantly distracted when you're talking
• Use positive body language to acknowledge you are listening. Something as simple as a head nod, smile or "mmhmm"
• Encourage two-way conversation by asking questions, requesting clarification, or summarizing comments
• Don't interrupt—and especially don't interrupt half-way though someone's sentence with "Yeah, yeah, yeah" like you know what they're going to say
• Relate your comments to something the other person has said during the conversation
• Remember what you've been taught since you were born…treat others as you want to be treated

Listening is not just the polite thing to do. It has tremendous benefits both professionally and personally:

• You learn new things: a leader in any organization can learn a lot by simply listening to their employees' biggest frustrations or challenges.
• You are equipped to make better decisions: a brainstorming session is much more effective when everyone's thoughts are discussed openly.
• You are more efficient: you retain more information through active listening and can use this knowledge to make future decisions quickly and with confidence
• You earn respect and trust: people feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas with others who listen and are genuinely interested.

"I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening." — Larry King

What can be done with your website design, layout, and content to make it easier for users to get what they’re looking for?

Steve Krug offers up some enlightened advice in his book Don’t Make Me Think. A must-read for anyone involved in website development, Krug’s book will help you learn more about how users really use the Web. It also provides excellent advice on which website elements are required so that users don’t have to think. Below are some key learnings from the book.

How We Really Use the Web

1. We don’t read pages, we scan them. Why?

• We’re usually in a hurry
• We know we don’t need to read everything
• We’re good at it

2. We don’t make optimal choices. We satisfice (we don’t choose the best option – we choose the first reasonable option). Why?

• We’re usually in a hurry
• There’s not much of a penalty for guessing wrong
• Weighing options may not improve our chances
• Guessing is more fun

3. We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle through. Why?

• It’s not important to us
• If we find something that works, we stick to it

Designing Pages for Scanning, Not Reading

There are five important things you can do to make sure users see and understand as much of your site as possible.

1. Create a clear visual hierarchy

• The more important something is, the more prominent it is (bold, bigger font)
• Things that are related logically are also related visually (grouping things together under one heading)
• Things are “nested” visually to show what’s part of what

2. Take advantage of conventions (conventions of page layout & formatting)

• They’re very useful - well-applied conventions make it easier for users to go from site to site without expending a lot of effort figuring out how things work
• Designers are often reluctant to take advantage of them

3. Break up pages into clearly defined areas

• Allow users to decide quickly which areas of the page to focus on and which ones to safely ignore

4. Make it obvious what’s clickable

• When you force users to think about something that should be mindless (like what’s clickable), you’re squandering the limited reservoir of patience

5. Keep the noise down to a dull roar

• There are 2 kinds of noise:
• Busy-ness – everything on the page is clamoring for attention
• Background Noise – lots of tiny bits of noise that wear us down

To learn more about website usability, pick up a copy of Don’t Make Me Think. It’s a quick read, it’s an informative guide, and it’s an invaluable tool that will help you develop more user-friendly, accessible, and efficient websites for your audience.

When asked to write this blog, my first reaction was complete intimidation. As Incite’s Administrative Assistant, blogging doesn’t constitute one of my normal day to day duties.

Why Is It So Terrifying?

This feeling always comes up whenever I have to do something out of the ordinary. In my experience at Incite, I see some of our clients react the same way when it comes to marketing. Either marketing is a new concept to them or Incite is recommending they consider an entirely new approach to it. Change is never easy and stepping outside our comfort zone often evokes feelings of fear and unease. But why?

The reasons are not always rational and likely very personal to each individual. Inside our comfort zone we feel safe and secure. As soon as we start to step outside, our anxiety mounts and we begin to feel stress. So, we typically retreat back to the safety of what we know. But that’s a problem.

Why Is It Important To Stretch Our Comfort Zone?

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Much like Incite’s clients, we all want to grow. But to expect personal or professional growth while we remain tucked safely within our comfort zone is, according to Einstein, insane!

Stretching our comfort zone allows us to learn, grow and build confidence. Here are some tips to help get past the fear:

1. Accept The Challenge: Know and accept that stretching your comfort zone is going to be uncomfortable and challenging. There will be good days and bad days, but in the end taking on the challenge is the only way to achieve rewards.
2. Take Baby Steps: Break your challenge into small manageable steps and do them consistently until you have achieved your goal. Like a baby learning to walk, don’t be afraid to take a step, fall down, get up and try again until you get it right.
3. Be Reasonable: Challenge yourself to something that is somewhat of a stretch for your current skill set. As you gain more confidence, challenge yourself to increasingly difficult goals.
4. Get Some Support: Taking risks are less scary when we have people encouraging us. Surround yourself with supportive people and let them help. Much like a client coming to Incite to support them in their marketing, it helps to lean on someone as we tackle new challenges.

Whether you are a company seeking to grow, or an individual wanting to get more out of your life and career, we need to challenge ourselves and take risks. Things are only as scary as we make them out to be, and I can now safely say that writing a blog is no longer a fear for me.

Most of us have tried a fad diet (or two), or at least know of someone who has. What is it about these diets that are so attractive? It probably has something to do with their promise of generating results, and fast. In this day and age of instant everything, if something doesn’t yield results quickly, it’s abandoned and considered unsuccessful. The need for instant outcomes extends from the individual to the corporation, where executives want immediate results.

And how do they achieve immediate results? The usual course of action is to launch a promotional campaign. These campaigns have a limited life, and are designed to boost sales and increase the bottom line—temporarily. Most of the time, promotions achieve their desired objective, just as someone consuming only cabbage soup drops the desired weight in time for their beach holiday. But then what? What happens after the promotion ends and you’re back from your holiday? Are you able to maintain the results? More often than not, the answer is no.

Using short-term fixes like promotions is a form of “marketing myopia.” This term was first introduced in 1960 by Theodore Levitt in a paper published in the Harvard Business Review. According to Levitt, marketing myopia is the short-sightedness of businesses who define themselves too narrowly (by focusing on their products) rather than stepping back and seeing what business they’re really in (by focusing on their customers’ needs).

By being customer-oriented rather than product-oriented, a business avoids the risk of becoming irrelevant and dispensable to its customers. This is why a company like Shell should consider itself to be in the energy industry, rather than the petroleum industry.

So where to begin? It starts with a sound marketing strategy. By thoroughly researching and assessing its industry, a company can find where the strongest need is and fill that gap. This positioning then becomes the backbone of the business and permeates all aspects of its operations through its brand.

It might seem like a no-brainer, but going back to basics is what many businesses need in order to succeed and respond to the highs and lows of the market.

I recently shared my ideas on the concept of confidence accumulation and its importance to cultivating referrals to some of my peers at a TEN luncheon.

We know that referrals are one of the most powerful drivers of business development (marketing giant Nike says that the vast majority of its business is from referrals). We also know that the science behind promoting good referrals involves creating a good experience, and to create a good experience you need to manage your touch points—not all your touch points though, only those that are important to your target market.

But how exactly do positive experiences at relevant touch points translate into referrals? Why is it that 100 good touch points can be ruined by 1 mediocre one?

One way to think about referrals is through the concept of accumulation.

In order for potential clients to decide to do business with you, to actually reach into their pockets and pull out their wallets, they need to feel confident that what they’re going to receive in exchange for their money is of equal value. There needs to be a certain level of confidence on their part, in your product or service. What’s more, that level of required confidence varies depending on the product or service. Common commodities like toothpaste or shampoo have a lower threshold of confidence that must be reached than, say, consulting services or a more significant product like a car or home.

For someone to refer your company, an accumulation of confidence also needs to occur—and perhaps even more so, because a referral reflects back on the person who gave it.

Here’s the connection: each touch point either adds to or detracts from that confidence.

This is why managing each touch point is so crucial, and also why some touch points should be weighted heavier than others. (How do you know which touch points to focus on? Survey your customers.)

For instance, a web-savvy consumer checks out a company’s website (one of his highly valued touch points) before going to the store to purchase something. If the website is terrible, he may not even go into the store because the amount of confidence lost in his interaction with this crucial touch point could be too much to recover.

On the other hand, another consumer might place more value in the appearance and manner of the company’s staff, and not care at all about the website.

The point is, think of your company’s touch points, think about the ones that matter most to your target, and then figure out how to make them confidence builders, not confidence detractors. It’s also important to make sure there aren’t any inconsistencies between your touch points, because inconsistency is one of the most detrimental factors to the accumulation of confidence.

People always think that good customer service is enough to generate referrals. But what does that mean exactly? Responsiveness? Expertise? Look and feel? In fact, someone’s willingness to refer your business is based on an accumulation of confidence over multiple touch points.

Sometimes our best ideas grow from a spontaneous conversation with a friend or colleague. Little nuggets of wisdom often emerge from something as innocuous as a morning chat over a cappuccino (my rationale for frequent coffee shop visits). Grand ideas are often conjured in the middle of a golf game (and forgotten when the beer cart comes around for the third time).

Unfortunately, Time never graces most of us with the opportunity to pursue those great thoughts, and so they get lost in the land of abandoned ideas.

To me, this is a tragedy because some of my greatest ideas have sprung from those times that I took a step outside the day-to-day chaos to think about things from a different perspective. (The idea for Incite came to Ted and me in a theoretical discussion about business during a hike around a lake.)

What’s more, there’s something to be said about the excitement of a great discussion. There’s an energy that flows when colleagues share ideas and have the freedom to discuss them openly—it’s truly an inspiring experience.

Lately, I’ve noticed that some of the moments I value the most are those time-outs for high-level thinking, those moments that I experienced the excitement of fellow (great) minds sharing ideas. I value those moments because each time I feel like I come out equipped with the power to navigate the world of business.

Out of a desire to set more time aside to think and share ideas with colleagues, out of a desire to experience that excitement as people discuss strategies to navigate the scene, a group of leaders in the Edmonton marketing industry recently got together to form TEN.

TEN is a group of marketing industry professionals who will meet ten times annually, and each of the ten members will present on a topic of choice to generate discussion and ideas. The goal is that TEN will be used as a strategic tool to stay ahead of the curve on marketing trends and ideas. By formally setting aside time, members will give themselves the chance to connect with other industry leaders as they navigate business issues and opportunities.

TEN recently had its first idea-sharing session, and it was a great success. One of our goals is to create a series of short blogs or articles about an idea that comes out of the group’s discussions, so that fewer ideas are lost in the shuffle of day-to-day business.

Groups like TEN are a great opportunity for people within or across industries to take time out to connect and have a look at business from a different perspective. It’s something most of us would like to do more often, and setting up a formal group for regular gatherings is the perfect way to make sure that happens.